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General: SOE Layoffs Announced
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
UPDATE: For those looking for more information about the SOE layoffs, John Smedley has posted a great deal on his Reddit account. He speaks a great deal about PlanetSide 2:
Some specific comments.
Is this layoff going to impact PS2? - no. we have a large team still working on it. Yes some people have been let go from the team. They did terrific work and it's just simply a cost cutting issue.
Is Planetside 2 doing well - yes. These cuts were SOE wide. They were neccessary to get our costs in line with our revenues. Simple as that.
Was anyone fired because we have Player Studio know and we don't need them? - Absolutely not. this is silly.
There are many people with theories on why stuff like this happens. I can tell you this very simply - we make the best games we can and as a company I can say with a straight face that we do our absolute best to minimize the times when we need to do layoffs like this. They absolutely suck. However we do our absolute best to get people placed with good companies and we absolutely hire people back.
I don't much like the boilerplate statements companies make these days, ours included.. so I wanted to come on here and let you know we stand by PS2 and our other games and despite some people no longer being at the team we are working hard on the optimizations and the other features we have promised. We are making good progress and we intend to have a full status update next week
Smed
Sony Online Entertainment's Linda Brasse has announced via her Twitter account that layoffs have happened at the game developer and publisher. The exact number and which studios are affected is not clear. We will keep you posted on this developing story.
Today we bid farewell to some brilliant minds and hearts leaving SOE. All our best wishes go with them.
@darinwsmith @everquest_next We cannot discuss personnel matters out of respect for employees, but what I can say is that the games go on.
From the DC Universe Online forum:
Today we announced a reduction in our workforce at SOE. As a company, our goal is to focus on our core expertise of MMO games and as part of these efforts, we had to make the difficult decision to eliminate positions to help reduce costs, streamline our employee base and strategically align resources towards our current portfolio of games and upcoming slate of MMOs, including EverQuest Next Landmark and EverQuest Next. We deeply value our employees and are grateful for all they’ve contributed to our company and games. They will be missed by colleagues and friends, and we wish them well in the future. Out of respect for our employees, we request that you do not discuss personnel matters on our forums.
Thank you for your understanding.
Comments
This is not good news and sadly SOE whilst looking for fame drop the axe at their highest moment of their new game and this saddens me greatly and no doubt we will hear on red at some point what has happened some time in the future. Good luck to whoever it is and lets hope they manage to find new positions.
Bandit.
Asbo
Their PR team proved they don't need to actually develop a game in order to sell it.
Given the way they've managed the EQNext reveal and their whole approach to the game I highly doubt their team will be affected in any way by these measures.
I wonder however if they will start streamlining their services and dedicating more resources towards quality instead of PR and the like.
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You know what , I agree! However at least EQnext will be F2P..........
Pray it doesn't go F2P - nothing says "We can't hold this game by subs alone," like F2P which depends on 1 out of every 1,000 players to be just crazy enough to spend enough to cover 1,000 subscriptions in silly purchasing.
I have yet to see a "good" mmorpg that has a F2P model. WoW might be losing subs, but they still trump every mmorpg I've played outside of Dark Age of Camelot (a sadly dated, EA ruined gem of a game).
Have you been away from any MMO news for a while? EQN is going to be f2p at release.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
This is the second time I've seen a statement about DCUO under-performing being the reason, but that game has been out for long enough for most, if not all, of its negative impact to be felt. I would have thought with Planetside 2 being the most recent launch from SOE that it would be the most likely to have the reductions. Of course, I could be wrong.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
No way to tell at this point. SOE-MOD-08 is running through the boards with his Nazi Hammer killing and deleting any thread that asks what the status of the dev team is. As there are so few to begin with, it doesn't look good.
Good indication that there is nothing worth talking about with regards to Vanguard. Not yesterday, not today, not tomorrow .. or the next day :P
It's very possibly devs who know their funding was cut to smitherines, but they want to prolong their jobs, so long as people play. SOE passes don't matter, it's the people that play that keep their positions. If the number falls .. it's curtains.
There is no funding for Vanguard today, tomorrow, next week, or next year.
Best way to prolong the game, is to pretend questions about the future never happened! Delete, delete, delete....
It's done. /wipe-hands
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
Events like this are the reason I decided (back when I was a teen) not to get into the video game industry. Even at the best of times, it's just not known to be possessed of a great deal of stability.
I hope those affected can find new jobs quickly. I'll be keeping them in my thoughts & prayers.
"Out of respect for our employees, we request that you do not discuss personnel matters on our forums."
So, after publicly announcing that employees were losing their jobs, SOE thinks it's disrespectful to the employees they just laid off to discuss that announcement on SOE forums.
How about, "As it is an embarrassment to SOE and yet another PR black eye, we ask that you not discuss the fact that our poor management ability has cost people their jobs on our forums, and embarrass us even further." I think that more accurately describes SOE's position.
It's disconcerting to anyone that people are losing their jobs, especially when it was through no fault of their own. Poor management at SOE (yes, that means John Smedley and those immediately beneath him), and at Sony in general, are the reason for this job loss.
After all these years, With failure after failure. With lay offs after lay offs.
I am absolutely baffled that John Smedley is still at the helm in this Company!
In any other Company, he would have been canned years ago!
He is the number 1 reason SOE is doing so badly these last years, with hundreds of People having lost their jobs!
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
A company like SOE works in project teams, some projects are shrinking in size, others are growing, most of the time its not possible to transfer all employees to other project teams, because there might not be a need for the employees quallities there..
Anouncements like this are mostly misunderstood by simple minds like gamers..
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
The massive lay offs that have happened in the last years at SOE is due to John Smedley´s missmanagement!
He has lost Complete touch With his playerbase for years! Has lied over and over to his playerbase. Making hard promisses he knew he could not keep!
And then let´s not even talk about how he has treated the European playerbase for years and now topping it off with the whole debacle with ProSieben!
And with that he has chased away a hell of a lot of loyal customers these past years running the Subscription numbers into the ground for many of their games!
Their PR Department is also one of the most incompetent in the world!
The problem is, I think, is that Smed is one of the original founders of SOE and has somehow a too strong anker in the Company to be removed.
Well with Sony Corporation being usurped by Samsung and LG as the premier electronics company I see the whole top management being to blame then because Sony have been unprofitable for years. Releasing unfinished, buggy, no content games over and over again and laying people off year on year isn't really doing your job properly is it? if you are making less and less money and have to lay off staff where is the shortfall coming from as the parent company has no money? it means you are having to release unfinished buggy games as you don't have development funds to do it properly. Does that sound familiar?
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.